Brotherhood
by Incanto
Summary: The event of the century, the International Witching & Wizarding Fellowship Conference, is fast approaching; the first in almost four hundred years. Everyone is prepared for trouble, but Harry and friends are feeling their age and confronting challenges other than dark magic. Can they pull it together in time to prevent the meeting designed to save the world from destroying it?


**AN:** _I knew I would end up doing a Harry Potter story eventually. I've been away from the series for a little while, so please forgive any little mistakes. Big mistakes of course can be reported in angry reviews. Nice reviews are much appreciated too _^_^_ Enjoy!_

_Cheers,_

_Incanto_

* * *

They called them Lads and a Lady Nights, and they took place three or four times monthly in the common room of the Leaky Cauldron. The Lady was Hermione Granger. The lads, of course, were Ron Weasley and Harry Potter. Mild doses of polyjuice potion had altered their appearances just enough that they could have been any three shop workers having a pint after work. Their fame, after all, could and often did bring unwanted attention.

There had been unsuccessful attempts to change the venue over the years; to the new microbrewery pub that had opened down the street, run by that eager young witch from California; or the new karaoke bar, an evening that had ended disastrously with Ron discovering a muggle band called One Direction. Somehow it always came back to this-the smoke-kissed room, colors like a urinal floor, and its rough-hewn untalkative patrons, that looked, in Harry's words, "like Neville's aunt's hat"-drab but indestructible. Once in a moment of drunken inspiration, Ron had asked the owner, a gruff Irish squib, where the name came from. He had been rather shocked when the man had an answer: "A man's a cauldron. The older he gets, the more leaks he springs." Although he had only been twenty-six at the time, Ron had thought he was starting to get that feeling.

Now, absentmindedly swilling the Guinness in his pint glass, he remembered that moment and said as if to no-one in particular: "Sprung any leaks this year?"

"A few," admitted Hermione.

Harry was silent, looking through his thick lenses at a four-horned stag head over the bar. Ron assumed he hadn't heard; but then he let out a quiet sigh. It was an answer.

"I'm going for the loo," he said quietly. "Want anything while I'm up?"

"Yeah, mate…what do you reckon, 'mione? Two ciders, two gins, ice in the cider?"

"Ugh, just the cider for me, thanks, Harry."

Hermione watched him as he walked slowly away, listing to the right. They were all pretty drunk, Ron reflected. The days of butter beer were long in the past.

"Oi," he said, with an affectionate push on her wrist. "Stare any harder and you'll put a hole straight through him. Unless…aw, blimey! Don't tell me you really _did_ fancy him all along after all…!"

"_No_ Mr. Weasly for your information, I was wondering…well. That is to say." Leaning closer, although he had already made it through the loo door, she whispered: "Do you think Harry's put on weight?"

Ron giggled.

"Shut _up_, I'm not joking! I don't think it's just the polyjuice, and it's starting to worry me."

"Yeah, he is a right tub of lard these days. Drinks a bloody lot too."

"That too! I think he drinks way too much. Remember that time at Shacklebolt's wine thing when he fell over and pulled all those curtains down?"

"Bein' an Auror's not all magical fun and games, darling. Though I'm not sure what's worse, having to track down psychopaths, or the mountains of parchment-work that come after. Most Aurors are on the sauce pretty hard, you know that. Hell, talking Shacklebolt, he's clean now, but in the old days," he leaned closer, whispering, "I hear he was such a waster that St. Mungo's had to put a hex on him. If alcohol so much as touches his lips, he falls down unconscious. Did it volunt'rly too, for the good of the cause and all that…"

Then, a guilty grin covering his bright red face, he took a drink.

"Well just because everyone's doing it doesn't make it alright for Harry! I don't think even his mother's love would protect him from a burst liver.-That was dreadful, I know." She leaned back, with a deeper sigh than Harry's had been. "Do you know, sometimes I think it's all because of our childhoods. I know, nearly everyone's problems are from childhood but…everyone's not _us_. That whole period was so dark and terrible but then, exciting, too, and then…it just _stopped_. And here we are, floating, like warships rotting in drydock." She shook her head rapidly. "I don't know."

"Maybe you're the one who's had a bit much, eh? Anyway, this International Fellowship whosit should ruffle his feathers a bit. Maybe it's just the bit of action he needs."

"Yes, I was thinking that too. It's just I wish…well…we never got the chance to have normal, healthy childhoods. We lived through something most people couldn't survive…but, that didn't make what came afterwards any easier."

"Normal? Healthy?" Ron burped."If bloody Malfoy were here, I bet he'd say that's the muggle in you talking.-Sorry! Sorry!"

But while Hermione raised her fist, whether jokingly or not, there was a ruckus across the room. They had been talking so freely because, for the past hour, the Cauldron had been unusually empty. They were the only patrons except…

"Bloody Australians," muttered Ron.

Until now, the two young, muscular, blonde men had mostly confined themselves to singing Quidditch chants. Their favorite had been a rather vuglar one celebrating 1971 when Australia had taken the World Cup from England. But what Ron heard next made his face switch like a bulb from dim annoyance to panic, and his hand went to his wand.

Waving their arms in the air, the drunken men were chanting: "Pra-ise Lord Voldemort! Pra-ise the Dark Lord!"

Hermione put her hand on Ron's shoulder. "It's not worth it, darling."

Ron's eyes bugged. "But-Hermione…d-didn't you…bleeding _Death Eaters_, here in…!"

"They're not Death Eaters," she said, and gave an even deeper sigh, then a sad, affectionate smile at Ron. "You're so naive, Ronald Weasely. It's endearing. No…in a way what they are is worse. They're racists."

"Race…what?"

"Look, I've met foreigners in my line of work, and…the sad truth is, however we see ourselves, we're not exactly popular in some corners of the world. The fact remains that the most powerful, evil wizard in living memory was English. Do you remember when we saw those German tourists getting heckled by the men putting their fingers under their noses and kicking their legs high?"

Ron was sputtering, face now very red. "Y-you mean to tell me…that's their idea of having a _go_?"

"That's precisely what it is, and that's all it is. They'd never dare if the bar were full, but they're drunk and they're trying to start a fight. Don't sink to their level."

With a real snarl, Ron put his hand back on the table.

"Thank you," Hermione said softly, and put her hand over his. Then in a faint ironic tone she went on: "Though if I were to sink to their level, I could point out the likelihood of their being descended from murderers."

"Aye? Come again?"

"You know Australia was originally a penal colony, don't you?-Oh, I forget not everyone sat for Muggle Studies. Well, not everyone who got sent there was a _bad_ criminal, but it's a pretty safe bet the wizards were. You see, magic-users in those days took care of their own. We weren't getting thrown in debtor's prison. If you were shipped abroad, it meant you had broken magical law too, and probably in a pretty horrible way."

"Blimey." Ron was now looking at the man with extreme interest, and what might even have been sympathy. They were oblivious. If they had been trying to start a fight, it was clear that by now they had forgotten, and were invoking the name of a mass-murdering tyrant because, for reasons they no longer remembered, it sounded funny.

* * *

As the hangover simultaneously churned his stomach with one hand, while its other scrabbled at his brain as if it were trying to unscrew it like a lightbulb, Ron stared very hard into his boss's face and wondered if that story about the hex were true. Well, yeah. Shacklebolt hadn't touched a drop at his own wine party where Harry had embarrassed himself. Ron bet the decision hadn't been easy. It was the hardest for a strong man to admit his own weakness, the harder the stronger he was.

Shacklebolt was old, and what remained of his hair around the corners of his proud, square head was grey. His office, as always, was unpretentious, almost without furnishing, except a decorative-looking wooden basket on one wall. If you twisted your head a bit that basket looked sort of like…

"…Mr. Weasly? You agree, I trust?"

"Oh-yeah, a-absolutley, sir. No question about it."

"Very good." Shackebolt huffed, adjusted his colorful robes, and went on. "Historically, the Oprichniki were secret police in the service of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. His moniker, I suppose speaks for itself, and their ruthlessness was legendary. This…" he flicked his wand, and the faint, glowing impression of a symbol or logo appeared briefly in the air: "The dog head sniffs out enemies of the Tsar. The broom sweeps up their corpses."

_When did I go back to Bins' bloody class? _Ron thought blearily. _First the Australians, now these Russians. Hope they aren't racists too._

Harry, sitting beside Ron and looking alert, if a bit pale, said intensely: "So they were a bunch of wizards, were they? No wonder they were all so good at their jobs. Those peasants never stood a chance."

"The organization that styles themselves the Oprichniki today," said Shacklebolt, "are different. The two of you are, I assume, familiar with the events of the Russian revolution?"

Harry nodded, Ron somewhat more reluctantly.

"Good. In my opinion, Hogwarts is far too lax in its teaching of muggle history; but two such clever boys as yourselves…" Shacklebolt allowed himself a slight smile before continuing: "In the first years of the revolution, nearly all wizards were expelled from Russia. Some fled voluntarily. Others died in the outbreaks of violence. But the largest order of Russian wizards called themselves the Oprichniki, after the old order, and it is because of their controversial nature that these events are seldom recording in wizard history books.

"These Oprichniki might not have been as bloodthirsty as their muggle counterparts, but their philosophy was…draconian, to say the least. They were absolutely loyal to the Tsar and Orthodox Christians, besides. They saw magic as a gift from God, and along with the Tsar and the Orthodox church, the foundation of the Russian state. Any challenge to that authority was a target for death. And when they proved unable to answer the final challenge of the revolution, they fled abroad…"

"So, rotters basically."

"Perhaps, Mr. Weasley, but not all the sort of rotters you and I are accustomed to dealing with. You see, the Oprichniki aren't bloodists. They're racists."

_Oh hell, really?_

"As far as they're concerned, true wizardry ended with the fall of the Tsar. Abandoning their sacred calling, they've fallen into petty criminal activities. Non-Russian wizards are no better than muggles in their eyes, and as they would have gone extinct without new blood, they have been freely intermarrying with muggle crime families for generations.

"Oprichniki soldiers were some our most tireless allies in the first struggle against…" even after so many years, Shacklebolt still flinched slightly before continuing, "Voldemort. He targeted them for their connections with muggles, assuming the eradication of criminals would boost his stock with his more soft-hearted followers…those who really bought his lies about some brave new world. They struck back, hard, killing fifteen Death Eaters. And only one of their number was tempted into Voldemort's service…"

"Dolohov," said Harry.

"Correct, Mr. Potter. Dolohov's betrayal weakened the Oprichniki and they were driven underground, working alongside us, until a certain event brought an end to the war. After that...as one may imagine, the Ministry was placed in a somewhat embarrassing position. Concessions were made. The Oprichniki's activities were placed under the sanction of muggle law. Although, needless to say, muggle law enforcement has had little success against an ancient and hardened order of mages. The Oprichniki and the larger wizarding community have existed in an uneasy _entente_ ever since."

"Err…"

"It's _French_, Ron," whispered Harry. "Means truce basically."

"Right, then. I knew that."

In reality, of course, Ron still thought of France as the country where pretty girls came from; of Russia he thought very little, if anything. He wondered, idly, what other half-secrets the Ministry was in the habit of keeping from the general public.

"So," he said. "That's very in'eresting and all, but I get the feeling this is more than a history lesson."

"And in that you would be correct, Mr. Weasly. You haven't forgotten, I trust, about the Fellowship Conference?"

"It's doubtful that I could, sir," said Harry, "when it's all anyone ever talks about. Do you mean to say…that is, are we really inviting a bunch of criminals to the International Fellowship conference? I don't mean to sound untoward, but _gangster_ isn't exactly the first word that comes to my mind when I hear _fellowship_."

"Oh," said Shacklebolt, slowly shaking his head, and he steepled his two long, powerful forefingers under his nose. "I don't want them as delegates. I want them as security."

Both Harry and Ron started, and Harry's glasses slipped. As he nudged them back into place he said: "Beg pardon, sir? I believe I misheard."

"Think about it, Potter. This is the perfect opportunity to bring them back into the fold. We need an impartial, battle-tested force to provide security. The Oprichniki fit both criterion. Their service in the war shows their ability to honor contracts and work alongside even people they aren't morally aligned with. I think this will flatter Nekrasov-that's the name of their current Don-make him amenable to negotiation. And they'll be well-compensated for their services, obviously. But we can't give any one nation a monopoly on force, and an international peacekeeping force would lack cohesion."

Harry was beginning to nod. "Yeah. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, when you put it that way. Still, though. Have to be on our guard…"

"Hmph. Goes without saying, Potter. In any case, I was simply preparing you. We're still putting out feelers, seeing if anyone is willing to talk…I will certainly inform you if and when a meeting is taking place."

"Right, then."

"You're dismissed, boys…"

Even as they started to get up, Shacklebolt had already whisked a quill and parchment out of his desk, ready as always, like a machine, for the next job. But as they left his eye lingered, not on Ron's but on Harry's face. With a slight arch of one eyebrow, he added: "Late night at the pub, Mr. Potter?"

Slouching faintly as if he were still a schoolboy getting a talking-to, Harry tossed off: "Yeah. You know how it goes. Sir."

"Oh, yes indeed," Shacklebolt said mildly, and bent back over the parchment; but there was something unmistakable in his tone, and Harry looked ashamed as he went out. Ron stayed a moment, swaying a bit of his heels.

"Um, sir. Look. I know it's really none of my business whatsoever, but…erhm…"

Shacklebolt knew exactly what he was going to ask. Without looking up, he gave the slightest, quick nod, that could have been the natural movement of his head as his quill scribbled furiously.

"It's true then? But…well, what if some evil wizard tosses a load of vodka in your face?"

Shacklebolt answered crisply: "That is a risk I would have to take. In the same time, he might have gotten off a hex. Good day, Mr. Weasely."

"Aye," murmured Ron, turned, and walked away with an uneasy look on his face.

The hell of it was, all this had been true even back _then_. It had been going on all around them and for the most part they'd been blind to it: grown-up life. That is wasn't only Voldemort that killed people. That in cases they could do far more damage to themselves than any hex.


End file.
